On Pomegranates and Pomeranians

I had the weirdest craving yesterday– for pomegranate of all things. (Heh. I misspelled that, and it autocorrected to “Pomeranian” which would have been an entirely different post.) Which is weird, because I don’t like pomegranate juice, or any kind of flavoring. But the real thing? Had. To. Have. Some.

Maybe it’s because I don’t eat them often, because they’re kind of messy. Pomegranates are one of those foods where the ratio of work to edible payoff isn’t really in it’s favor. Sort of like oysters and Cornish hen. I’m sure that in cultures where you have to work for all your food (i.e., can’t just run down to the grocery store for the easy open package) then no one would complain. For that matter, I’m not complaining. Because while I was sitting here pulling open the sections of fruit yesterday–Well, not sitting HERE because this is a new laptop, and as I’ve said, eating a pomegranate is messy business–I was thinking how satisfying the actual act of eating was, picking out the seeds one by one. It serves that hand to mouth motion that makes me eat bad for me things, like chips and dip, and Smarties.

(I love Smarties. I open the packs, and sort them by color, then reward myself while I writing. Write a paragraph, eat a smartie. OR sometimes, when it’s not going so well, write a sentence/word/letter, eat a smartie.)

Fresh coconut is another one of those foods I love but rarely eat because it’s too much trouble. I won’t touch dried, toasted, canned, packaged or otherwise processed coconut, but ohmygod, it’s so good when you pry it right out of the shell, a hard won trophy.

But it does make me wonder who first ate these things. Someone really hungry, I’ll bet. It makes me think of that Johnathan Swift quote: “It was a brave man who first ate an oyster.”

What about you guys? Do you have something you love to eat, but save for special occasions/deep cravings because it’s a lot of trouble?